Claude Opus 5 (Low) vs Granite 4.2 30B
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Low) by Anthropic or Granite 4.2 30B by IBM? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5 (Low) scores 26.7 points higher (39.4 vs 12.7) but costs 14× as much to run the benchmark ($1561 vs $111; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (Low) when you need intelligence above 12.7, and Granite 4.2 30B when 12.7 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Low) | Granite 4.2 30B | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 39.4 | 12.7 | −67.8% Granite 4.2 30B is 67.8% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,560.91 | $110.83 | −92.9% Granite 4.2 30B is 92.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 11.45s | 54.96s | +380.0% Granite 4.2 30B is 380.0% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.16 / $0.65 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Granite 4.2 30B vs Claude Opus 5 (Low): 67.8% less intelligence, 92.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 380.0% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- Granite 4.2 30B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Flash scores 37.90 for $110.
Claude Opus 5 (Low)Granite 4.2 30BToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-low/granite-4-2-30b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-low/granite-4-2-30b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill